A 6 days trip (Bangalore-Gokarna-Bangalore)

[Torque123]

Hi Guys, I and 4 of my friends decided to visit Gokarna (Its my home town)by my car Swift Vxi. So

1st Day - So we left at 6AM from Bangalore (Malleshwaram) and hit Tumkur road. Filled Fuel at Shell Bunk (rajajinagar) And we reached Tumkur at around 7.15AM. Had breakfast there and took a left which connects to Gubbi-Tiptur-Arasikere-Birur-Shimoga. By 10.30AM we reached a place where we can take a diversion to the left and 30kms from there is Halebidu. We reacjed Halebidu at 11.00AM. Below are the few pics taken and Halebidu. Then around 12.30 we left Halebidu and around 1.45 or 2.00PM we reached Birur. Here there is a restaurant/dhaba called Masala (the only good place to eat between the stretch of Tumkur and Birur). Had a nice meal and my friends had a little bit of booze too. We then started our journey at around 3.30 PM and travelled via Bhadravathi-Shimoga. Ataround 6.00 we reached a place called Sagar. From there Jog Falls is around 40 or 45 KMS. The road from Sagar to Jog is wonderful (especially around when it about to become dark). The scenic beauty attracts you so much because of dense vegetation on either sides of the road. For sometime you feel that you are driving through a tunnel and as soon as the vegetation ends you get to see sunlight. By the time we reached Jog Falls it was 8.00PM. We got a huge room (a 1 bedroom house like) for 550/- . And the lodge in which we had got the room was facing the falls. In the night one cant see the falls but can hear the ROAR of the falls. All of us had nice dinner (with booze ) and went off to bed.

2nd DAY - The next day we were up and ready by 7.00AM. Below are the snaps of Jog Falls. Please dont laugh (the water level was too less and December is not the right time to visit Jog).We then left Jog at around 9.00AM (after having breakfast). This is where the ghat section starts. It was fun driving this stretch. You get a view point while travelling through this ghat section. You also get the linganamakki dam (surrounded by the river Sharavati) Attached are the snaps of the view point and the dam.The ghat section is around 30 to 35KMS from Jog and is a foreat area also.
Then around 11.30 we reached Honnavar and around 12.15 we reached Kumta (Honnavar to Kumta is around 32 kms) and we reached Gokarna at 1.30. We stayed in a lodge called Shivaprasad (you get this as soon as you enter Gokarna, the first lodge you come across). We had to stay in a lodge though Gokarna is my hometown because our house there has 3 temples in it and my relatives are priests and will not encourage the kind of enjoyment we guys wanted to have (You know what i mean....booze, non-veg). We ahd to pay 500 bucks per day for the room there (all 5 of us stayed in that room as it was very big with 3 beds). We dumped our luggage and had our lunch also. Then around 4.00 we headed to OM beach. You have 3 beaches there (om beach, half moon beach, paradise beach). Once you reach Om beach you will be ferried by the boats to paradise beach and Half moon beach (ofcourse we need to pay for it). You will get all kinds of food (the shack owners also have small restaurants where they serve everything from booze to meals and breakfast). There was a group of people from Australia who had come here to celebrate Christmas. They had made a turtle out of the beach sand. Attached is the snap.

[Torque123]

Sorry Guys, I accidently clicked on submit post could not post the snaps..So shere is the snap of the turtle. Then we lazed around the beach, played in the water. By 6.15 or so we headed back room. on the way back to the room we took snaps of the sunset.Later we went to a restaurant near the beach which is very close to the famous lord Shiva temple. This restaurant is run by a couple of Tibetians. The food there is awesome (they serve mexican, spanish, chinese food). Had or dinner there. The speciality of this restaurant is you will find ONLY foreighners there. When we went (we spent almost 2 and a half hours there) we were the ONLY indian gang. After the dinner we hit the bed.

Day 3 - We woke up and got ready by 8.00AM and visited the famous lord Shiva temple. Then we had our breakfast and did a little bit of shopping (guys shopping there is costlier than Bangalore). By then it was 12.30. We went back to the room. Freshened up and had our lunch. Then by 2.30 we were on our way to Yana (around 40 km from Gokarna). There are 2 routes to Yana. The first route will take you almost near Yana (2 km away) and the other route dont ask is pathetic. For my bad luck i took the 2nd route. Its a mud road with ups and downs and ONLY MUVS like Sumo, Trax, Qualis can travel on such roads. My pic would be Trax. Its literally driving in a forest. About 9 kms away from Yana we had to stop our car and go by walk because the skirts of my car were getting hit badly and we arrived at a point where my car could not cross a huge road hump kind of a barrier (mind it it is of mud not tar). By the time we started walking it was already 4.30PM and we had to walk 9km to reach Yana. I was against it but my friends were bent upon going there. Finally I too joined them. The entire stretch is of Black (soft) soil.By the time we reached Yana it was 5.45. We quickly visited the place saw whatever we had to see and by the time we started coming back towards our car it was dark. You will get Only 1 small shop on the way which is about 4 to 5 kms away from Yana, and you dont have any lodge, homestays, hotels there. We almost were scared to death because it was dark and there were no lights there as it is a forest. There is complete silence. We had a 1100 mobile phone which has the torch light and a N73 which had flash in its camera. We have reached back to the car using the torchlight and flash of the 2 cell phones. Guys i am really not able to express what we were going through. It was an adventure but at the cost of getting lost in the forest in the night.Here are the few snaps of Yana. We reached back to the room around 9.30 or 10.00 and then went to bed directly without having dinner. And boy all of us were literally amazed with the kind of adventure we had that day.

Will post the rest of the snaps and details about the trip later. Its time for me to sleep now.